Opportune
by cognomen
Summary: After Advent Children, ShinRa begins to set back up. Will Avalanche let them have a second chance? Short themed work done for my fanfic advent calendar Day 1.


Opportune

A year and then some had passed since The Rain That Healed, and it had turned after into the Snow that Covered. Midgar had become lost in drifts of snow. Those that still lived there, huddled under parts of the plate, had been driven out at last by cold. Buildings, half rebuilt, let in frost through gaping, window-shaped wounds. Truth be told, there was very little left to be loyal to in Midgar. People gathered up their belongings and left. Those that stayed behind, scavenging, found the city turning green all over in Spring. People still visited, dug through, spoke to places that meant a lot to them, but the City was pushing everyone out. Telling them to stand on their own, while vines and weeds began to pull it down from the inside.

Even ShinRa abandoned its past center of operation, found new headquarters. Oddly enough, in Neibelheim. At first, they'd tried to inhabit the old ShinRa mansion, but unsuperstitious as they were, it drove them out again. They had their vengeance by hiring in a crew of wreckers, their plans of renovation revised into a straight rebuild.

"It wasn't, um, very structurally sound anymore." Reeve didn't sound as if he'd convinced himself, either. He relayed the message apologetically to Cloud and Tifa in person, for once. He'd made the excuse of coming out to their progressing orphanage to adjust Cait Sith, repair a few bugs and oil some joints. He wasn't so good with children, when he wasn't hundreds of miles away and puppeteering. Marlene watched with an almost concerned expression while he laid out intricate cogwork on the table, cait's black and white form limp over the former executive's knees. "Plus, it let so much cold in."

Tifa wasn't entirely convinced that he was here just to repair a lose cog or two. His nerves seemed more frayed than Cait's stitches, and she suspected that he felt safer speaking of the mansion's murder hundreds of miles away from it's questionable reach. Cloud just shook his head - he knew what that house carried.

"Reeve, you don't have to go back to them." Tifa set warm coffee at his elbow. Her sudden voice at his side startled him, he dropped a ball-bearing. It bounced once on the kitchen floor, leaving a little dent in the smooth boards before it rolled away. Reeve held perfectly still so as not to upset a shower of parts, but Marlene chased it down while Tifa continued, after a momentary pause. "You're just as much one of us."

"Which means, that I'm equally with and not with either of you." He smiled, creases appearing at the corners of his eyes. He set aside a tiny jeweler's screwdriver and recovered the coffee he was offered. "ShinRa's paying me to make sure they become good guys this time. People still need power, they still need technology." He directed his next statement at Cloud, who still rode around a bike that was originally ShinRa manufacture. Recovered and repaired and having its insignia long removed, the bike showed little allegiance to its former creators, but that didn't remove its origins.

"They can't really mean to start right back up where they left off," Cloud raised his voice at last, arms crossed over his chest. He couldn't believe in the inherant goodness in all people, and especially not the ragtag bunch who still allied under the broken company banner. "Rufus knows what using Mako as a power source does to the planet-"

"Not Mako," Reeve interjected, carefully, after swallowing a mouthfull of coffee that was just a hair too unsweetened for his usual. "Oil's a viable option, and coal. These are raw energy sources, what they need is refineries." Leaning back in his chair, he surveyed everything that he'd laid out on the table, neat rows of everything that made Cait Sith work. "We're building power plants that turn these into electricity."

"Out of the goodness of your hearts." Cloud used 'you' because Reeve used 'we'. A natural play in the shifting of responsibility.

"Someone has to start an economy back up. Money needs to be made, Mr. Strife. It's not just out of greed, we have ideas to fund hospitals, build housing for the people displaced from Midgar-"

"Shinra's just -full- of warm hospitality and fuzzies recently, aren't they?" Reeve startled again as Barrett thudded in the back door, Marlene perking instantly and rushing to be picked up. "Do you believe everything they tell you, Reeve, or do they just send you here to make nice with death threats at your back?" He stomped into the kitchen with his mis-matched daughter supported on one intimidatingly large shoulder.

"People -can- change, you know." Reeve was re-assembling the puppet, slowly, deliberately. He applied a little grease as he went. "Rufus is just a person, the same as any of us can say. And the money he put aside won't last forever if all it does is get spent. The Turks stay because he pays them, houses them, and feeds them." Well, that and they were loyal creatures. "They need to live, too."

"Don't see why." Barrett growled as he bent into the fridge to poke through clearly labeled leftovers. "No need to have consideration for people who ain't considerate."

Reeve lamented to himself, while he worked a stubborn gear into place, that perhaps only -some- people could change. Barrett, he suspected, would never be particularly understanding or forgiving.

-----

"Batter up!" Reno's voice rang out over the crowded lawn as the wrecking ball swung backwards on its heavy metal chain, the smallish crane pivoting on it's treads to send it smashing into the front of the mansion. A crowd had gathered to see it go down, though none of them would admit to the sort of eagerness that they felt. Villagers, Turks, Presidents and passerby were all crowded just outside of the safety zone.

Where Rufus had commissioned a working, oil powered crane from, none of the remaining ShinRa employees were entirely certain. All of them had professed that they would be too busy that morning - after all, they'd spent the better part of the week dragging what furniture could be salvaged out onto the lawn. It wasn't much - there wasn't a whole lot inside that place that didn't feel like it had at one time been possessed as fiercely by a living being as it now felt like it was in the spiritual sense.

And yet there they all were, ignoring the fact that they were freezing their asses off as a blue suited collective, the president equally entrapped by the sight of a ton of lead repeatedly impacting the mansion. He was still wheelchair bound, but his eyes had lost some of the photosensitivity they'd aquired in the accident. Four sets of eyes followed the slow arc of the wrecking ball on the chain, as if they expected the Mansion to suddenly start fighting back instead of crumpling in on itself in a way that was deeply satisfying.

"Go on, you bastard," Elena muttered under her breath, unaware of Tseng's attention sliding in her direction. Her fists clenched up, and she practically leaned forward with each crushing impact. "Just fall down already."

She'd been the loudest supporter of the rebuild, threatening to burn the place down for insurance money if no one else did anything about it. She refused to go into the basement, and none of the other Turks really blamed her. Reno had run screaming out of there after he'd offered to swap duties with Elena. He refused to talk about it - so either he'd been genuinely scared or it was all a trick to get out of having to do anything. When he'd offered to help Elena clean the kitchen instead, everyone was certain it was the former.

It was Rude doing the honors - before he was a Turk he'd worked on a wrecking crew. Simple transition, one sort of wrecking to the other. He looked grim behind his sunglasses, but not in the least regretful. On the fifth swing, the house shuddered threateningly. A deep, wrenching groan came from inside of it, it began to lean. Reno's hands came up in a victorious motion, when a loud, metallic shrieking split the cheers that had just begun to rise at the mansion's downfall. It was almost slow-motion the way the leaning intensified until the place began to look like one of those carnival fun-houses, all the while the piercing wailing emitted from within.

Later, people would attribute it to twisting wood, nails pulling free. Except Reno, who said it was just pissed that it could be toppled that easily. The last noise the house made was a half-musical, jangling, twanging thud as it landed on the piano. The staircase supported some of the rubble in the middle, but not for long. Rude threw the wrecker into gear and ran its heavy treads over the collapsed structure until stairs also gave under its weight. Silence descended.

Tseng also cheered, when the town did. Those who weren't standing up close and personal were hanging out of windows to watch the particles of dust filter through the air, mixed with steam from people's breaths. The remains of the house seemed to sigh into place, Reno and Elena scrambling forward to begin tossing pieces onto the garbage truck that was there for that very reason. Their leader had just stepped forward to help them out, when Rufus seized his sleeve from the wheelchair, pulling him down to listen.

"That's everything my Father built." But he was smiling.

----

A cell-phone rang, and was answered, but no words were spoken in greeting. It didn't matter, since the caller was used to hearing nothing when this phone was picked up.

"Vincent! We're gonna swing by in the Sierra and get you, so be ready!" Cid shouted over the line, every time. Regardless of the advances in PHS communication, the would-be-astronaut believed that one had to shout to be heard. Vincent held the phone away from his ear, trusting his sensitive hearing to pick up anything important that might come more softly over the line.

"I'll meet you at the edge of the forest, then." He tilted the phone in toward his mouth, so that the microphone would pick up his soft tone.

"What!" Cid spoke louder still, provoking a distasteful expression from the quieter one at the other end of his communication. "Damn cellphones - Can you hear me!"

"Stop yelling. I'll meet you." Vincent risked a closer posture with the phone, to avoid further miscommunication that would result in more yelling.

"O-Kay!" Cid slowed down his pronounciation, as if he were not only speaking to someone who was deaf, but also an idiot. "We'll - be - there - in - an - hour!"

Vincent clicked the cellphone closed, still not entirely certain the purchase was worth it. But it meant that people could get in touch with him, and that made him feel needed, if just a little. He began to head for the spot where he'd meet the Sierra.

---

With all of them gathered together at the Orphanage, everyone felt a little nostalgic. Even Barrett got a little quieter and a little gentler in manner, keeping his voice down. They laughed together a little, while Tifa made and dispensed coffee. Everyone's mug was a different color, some chipped in places. Nobody minded. Marlene dragged Cait Sith down from his babysitting job upstairs, to show off his new, improved AI, forcing him to walk and talk and demonstrate all manner of clever answers and tell fortunes.

"When is a Turk not a Turk?" He chirruped, Reeve's voice altered by some sort of filter that made it a constant source of obnoxious pleasure for the children. Denzel slumped downstairs, rubbing his eyes and complaining about all the noise, and the cat puppet dispensed a fortune for him and Marlene that read, 'Bedtime is in your immediate future'.

Somewhere on Reeve's desk, little indicator lights were probably going crazy.

Tifa ushered the kids back upstairs, while Cloud finally asserted - quietly - his position as leader and called them all back into the living room, where they arranged on couches, chairs, and in Vincent's case, stood. Red XIII settled down last, tucking his chin over his paws where he curled by the lit fireplace.

"ShinRa's rebuilding," Cloud assessed, as if that was a real way to open a discussion. He found himself stopping, then shook his head. He wasn't used to really having any sort of leadership, but he was getting better at it. "They say they have everyone's best interests in mind - but..."

"I bet they just want the money," Yuffie surmised when Cloud began to hesitate, interrupting the thoughts he was gathering. "I mean, that's just like them. They can't resist doing anything if they think they'll make a buck off of it."

"You all forget that Rufus isn't his father." Vincent spoke up, on ShinRa's behalf, it seemed. Almost everyone looked shocked, and Cid practically looked betrayed.

"Just as goddamn good as his father!" Having been told to refrain from smoking inside the orphanage, he was perhaps even crankier - it was too damn cold outside for him to smoke out -there-, so he'd refrained entirely. Low nicotine levels in the blood stream left Cid even more fantastically irritable than ever. He'd had Tifa redo his coffee three times, though Barrett had accepted his first castoff as his own, and Cloud the second. On the last cup, Tifa had threatened to bring his current wellbeing to a sudden and violent end if he called her 'woman' one more time. "Can't trust any of them, you see how they treat their promises!"

"There's a major difference." Vincent's voice raised above Cid's. "The Turks trust him."

"Oh -babykillers- and grannyrapers!" Cid's voice raised higher, Tifa re-entered the room with a cross expression and shushed them. Cid considered, then quieted a bit. "I don't see how that would make any damn sort of positive effect on our judgement."

"The Turks have always operated somewhat as an independent structure within ShinRa." Vincent's tone turned buisiness, he eyed Cid when the other looked like he was about to make a pointless and loud interjection. The pilot had a sip of coffee instead. "They're just as human as we are. The difference is they're family. They all have the same blood on their hands, and they watch each other's backs. They treat Rufus as one of their own, and not as just the man who pays them - which I suspect he does less and less these days, with no money coming in."

"What diff'rence doessat make, huh?" Barrett looked as if he were getting ready to explode in a tirade of righteous 'we're the goodguys, they tried to kill the planet, shoulda just killed them and had done with it' bullshit. The same sort he always pulled out whenever someone mentioned ShinRa.

"The person that you hold a grudge against, Barrett Wallace, Cid Highwind - even my own grudge, if you could call it that - is dead." Vincent was guiding the conversation in a straightforward manner. Cloud felt himself somewhat left out, and tucked his arms over his chest, thinking.

"He's right. And listen, the world practically ended. It's changed us," Cloud put in, at last, stepping forward into the center of the room. He wanted this debate to end, and he'd decided that he wanted to end it in the direction he felt it was best to go. "it could very well have changed them. Look, we all have second chances. They should have one, too."

"That mess with Jenova-!" Cid's loud interjection was cut short.

"They were searching for a cure for Geostigma." Cait Sith had risen from where the children had left him on the floor. The A.I. program gave way to direct control, his voicebox projecting Reeve's real voice rather than the parodied, filtered one he'd recorded for the device. "Which Rufus had, and Cloud had - practically everybody had."

"And a cure was found." Cloud put in, agreeing. Perhaps not with their methods, but secrecy was part of a company's rights. "Listen, we've saved the world how many times? If ShinRa ever ends up being a problem again - we're more than capable of taking them down." Some of the mako-glow had faded from his eyes, but he still held everyone's gaze in turn with an even, glowing stare.

The conversation sputtered out in halfhearted mutterings. Red and Cait sat together and debated who was the actual Avalanche mascot. Eventually, an agreement came around. But it was an agreement, and one that none of them felt the need to regret, each rebuilding their own parts of the world after the world had created a need for all of them, individually. From Wutai to Rocket town, to Cloud's delivery service, they never had long to lament on days past, just things to progress toward in the future. 


End file.
